1928, Chicago, United States.
As America's second-largest city, Chicago, with its population of three million, ranked among the foremost cities in the world.
New York and Chicago alone had a combined population of nearly ten million, while the total population of the United States at this time was only a little over one hundred million. This showed just how formidable America's leading cities were.
This was completely different from East Africa. In fact, among the world's major nations, East Africa was quite an unusual case, because none of its cities had developed an absolutely overwhelming advantage over the rest.
Even Germany, renowned for its balance in the twenty-first century of Ernst's previous life, had Berlin, a city of nearly four million people, at the beginning of the twentieth century. No second German city could stand on equal footing with it.
East Africa, meanwhile, had more than a dozen cities with populations exceeding one million, yet the gaps between them were not large. Dar es Salaam, generally considered the largest city, and Mombasa, the second-largest, were evenly matched in population, with neither able to gain the upper hand.
Thus, East Africans in America, especially in New York and Chicago, were easily awed by such colossal cities.
Hechingen Bank, Chicago.
Manager Kuinleir gazed out at Chicago's forest of steel and exclaimed, "Chicago truly deserves to be called America's second-largest city. It has more than a million more people than Dar es Salaam, and skyscrapers rise everywhere. I'd say only London and New York could reliably keep Chicago beneath them. I wonder whether East Africa will ever have a city with more than three million people."
Deputy Manager Antonio shook his head. "Let alone three million, it probably won't be easy for any city back home to break two million. The path of